Not Obama's Katrina, Bush's second Katrina

[momonkey]

Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's oversight agency, the Minerals Management Service, with a septic culture of corruption from which it has yet to recover. Oil patch alumnae in the White House encouraged agency personnel to engineer weakened safeguards that directly contributed to the gulf catastrophe.

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

Bending over for Big Oil became the ideological posture of the Bush White House...

Whole article...


"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

I wonder when the Congressional hearings will begin. You know if it was printed in Huff-n-puff, it's definitely not baseless third-hand gossip.


Think oil companies and Haliburton hooked up big investors Michael Moore and George Soros with bimbos and drugs too?


He’s owned shares in Schlumberger, an oil well-drilling company. He’s owned shares in Noble Energy, which is an oil pipeline company. If you look about 60% down the right-hand column, you can see that, a few years ago he actually owned shares in Halliburton, of all things.

FrontPage Magazine - Do As I Say....


Tax returns of Moore's non-profit foundation – a non-profit foundation for which there are only two officers, Moore and his wife – showed ownership of 2,000 shares of Halliburton, the company most vilified by Moore in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"The real question, however, is whether MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, and other organizations that have benefited from Soros' charity will see a problem with accepting money earned off Halliburton shares?"

Soros makes Halliburton stealth buy





"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Human fetuses didn't make the list?

 

[xsited1]

Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
...

It's too bad Robert F. Kennedy Jr took so much heroin early in life. His brain is really fried.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The Kennedy Family fortune came from selling the market short worse than Goldman Sachs ever did

 

[CrusaderFrank]

And so will you.

Only if fucking retards like you and your Marxists friends stay in power

 

[Samson]

Obama hasn't had time to fix the previous administration's constantly growing list of "fuck ups".

So, exactly what has he had time to "fix?"



I'm waiting for CHANGE!!

 

[rdean]

Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's oversight agency, the Minerals Management Service, with a septic culture of corruption from which it has yet to recover. Oil patch alumnae in the White House encouraged agency personnel to engineer weakened safeguards that directly contributed to the gulf catastrophe.

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

Bending over for Big Oil became the ideological posture of the Bush White House...

Whole article...


"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

I wonder when the Congressional hearings will begin. You know if it was printed in Huff-n-puff, it's definitely not baseless third-hand gossip.


Think oil companies and Haliburton hooked up big investors Michael Moore and George Soros with bimbos and drugs too?


He’s owned shares in Schlumberger, an oil well-drilling company. He’s owned shares in Noble Energy, which is an oil pipeline company. If you look about 60% down the right-hand column, you can see that, a few years ago he actually owned shares in Halliburton, of all things.

FrontPage Magazine - Do As I Say....


Tax returns of Moore's non-profit foundation – a non-profit foundation for which there are only two officers, Moore and his wife – showed ownership of 2,000 shares of Halliburton, the company most vilified by Moore in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"The real question, however, is whether MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, and other organizations that have benefited from Soros' charity will see a problem with accepting money earned off Halliburton shares?"

Soros makes Halliburton stealth buy





"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Human fetuses didn't make the list?

So I go to the site you show as "evidence" and the "article" you reference is a "speech". So I start looking over the site and here are the titles of some of the other articles:

Why Are Jews Liberals?

The Three R's in the Age of Obama: Rappin', Revolution and Radicalism (Politicized lessons supplant core academics.)

Obama’s Dangerous UN Agenda
(Obama insulted his own country, promoted environmentalism, embraced unilateral disarmament, and declared counterterrorism a “law enforcement” matter.
Conspiracy Czar)

Obama’s Human Rights Disaster

Islamist Groups Threaten Free Speech Ruling

********************

Obama's "dangerous"?

Obama's "disaster"?

Rappin'?

You might want to pick a more "credible" site. Though I don't know. White Wingers on this site have referred to "Forbes" "BusinessWeek" and the "New York Times" as "moonbat publications".

 

[momonkey]

So I go look up, "National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)" to see what year it was written? 1969. Who was president in 1969? I should have guessed.

Well, who was President in 2009?



So am I supposed to hate Bush for giving oil companies a pass on stricter regulation but not BO when he did the exact same thing in 2009?



The decision by the department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 -- and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions -- show that neither federal regulators nor the company anticipated an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in the gulf.

washingtonpost.com






Isn't Common Dreams funded by the same George Soros who purchased all that Haliburton stock?



Liberals reveal their ignorance more and more every single day.

 

[momonkey]

Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's oversight agency, the Minerals Management Service, with a septic culture of corruption from which it has yet to recover. Oil patch alumnae in the White House encouraged agency personnel to engineer weakened safeguards that directly contributed to the gulf catastrophe.

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

Bending over for Big Oil became the ideological posture of the Bush White House...

Whole article...


"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

I wonder when the Congressional hearings will begin. You know if it was printed in Huff-n-puff, it's definitely not baseless third-hand gossip.


Think oil companies and Haliburton hooked up big investors Michael Moore and George Soros with bimbos and drugs too?


He’s owned shares in Schlumberger, an oil well-drilling company. He’s owned shares in Noble Energy, which is an oil pipeline company. If you look about 60% down the right-hand column, you can see that, a few years ago he actually owned shares in Halliburton, of all things.

FrontPage Magazine - Do As I Say....


Tax returns of Moore's non-profit foundation – a non-profit foundation for which there are only two officers, Moore and his wife – showed ownership of 2,000 shares of Halliburton, the company most vilified by Moore in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"The real question, however, is whether MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, and other organizations that have benefited from Soros' charity will see a problem with accepting money earned off Halliburton shares?"

Soros makes Halliburton stealth buy





"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Human fetuses didn't make the list?

So I go to the site you show as "evidence" and the "article" you reference is a "speech". So I start looking over the site and here are the titles of some of the other articles:

Why Are Jews Liberals?

The Three R's in the Age of Obama: Rappin', Revolution and Radicalism (Politicized lessons supplant core academics.)

Obama’s Dangerous UN Agenda
(Obama insulted his own country, promoted environmentalism, embraced unilateral disarmament, and declared counterterrorism a “law enforcement” matter.
Conspiracy Czar)

Obama’s Human Rights Disaster

Islamist Groups Threaten Free Speech Ruling

********************

Obama's "dangerous"?

Obama's "disaster"?

Rappin'?

You might want to pick a more "credible" site. Though I don't know. White Wingers on this site have referred to "Forbes" "BusinessWeek" and the "New York Times" as "moonbat publications".

Do you really think Moore and Soros didn't own Haliburton?

When do you think the Congressional hearings will begin to investigate the corruption at the Minerals Management Service?

 

[rdean]

I wonder when the Congressional hearings will begin. You know if it was printed in Huff-n-puff, it's definitely not baseless third-hand gossip.


Think oil companies and Haliburton hooked up big investors Michael Moore and George Soros with bimbos and drugs too?


He’s owned shares in Schlumberger, an oil well-drilling company. He’s owned shares in Noble Energy, which is an oil pipeline company. If you look about 60% down the right-hand column, you can see that, a few years ago he actually owned shares in Halliburton, of all things.

FrontPage Magazine - Do As I Say....


Tax returns of Moore's non-profit foundation – a non-profit foundation for which there are only two officers, Moore and his wife – showed ownership of 2,000 shares of Halliburton, the company most vilified by Moore in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"The real question, however, is whether MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, and other organizations that have benefited from Soros' charity will see a problem with accepting money earned off Halliburton shares?"

Soros makes Halliburton stealth buy





"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Human fetuses didn't make the list?

So I go to the site you show as "evidence" and the "article" you reference is a "speech". So I start looking over the site and here are the titles of some of the other articles:

Why Are Jews Liberals?

The Three R's in the Age of Obama: Rappin', Revolution and Radicalism (Politicized lessons supplant core academics.)

Obama’s Dangerous UN Agenda
(Obama insulted his own country, promoted environmentalism, embraced unilateral disarmament, and declared counterterrorism a “law enforcement” matter.
Conspiracy Czar)

Obama’s Human Rights Disaster

Islamist Groups Threaten Free Speech Ruling

********************

Obama's "dangerous"?

Obama's "disaster"?

Rappin'?

You might want to pick a more "credible" site. Though I don't know. White Wingers on this site have referred to "Forbes" "BusinessWeek" and the "New York Times" as "moonbat publications".

Do you really think Moore and Soros didn't own Haliburton?

When do you think the Congressional hearings will begin to investigate the corruption at the Minerals Management Service?

Do you really think Moore and Soros didn't own Haliburton?

2,000 shares is almost nothing.

I don't have any problem with anyone investing in the Stock Market. That is an American Pass-time. A good one as far as I'm concerned. If they have the money.

The problem is selling mortgages to people who can't afford them, selling them overseas as "securities", creating derivatives by insuring those securities and then making a fortune when those mortgages fail.

In the world of Republicans, everything is "either/or". It's probably the main reason they are so awful at governing. If you own stock you are "either" in someones pocket "or" you are a hypocrite because you criticize that company for making money in an unethical manner. And, because of "deregulation", what Wall Street did is NOT illegal. At least not now. But I bet it will be.

 

[jeffrockit]

Oil wells in the ocean are not perfect creations. Oil spills happen. (Indeed, more oil is spilled each year by entirely natural seepage than by all oil drilling accidents combined).

The disaster that hit that oil well wasn't the "fault" of the Bush Administration any more than it was the "fault" of the Obama administration.

Any argument from that pompous clown-voiced moron, Robert Kennedy, Jr., is presumptively false.

President Bush got roundly (in my view unfairly) criticized for the slow Federal Government reaction to the Katrina disaster.

The basis of the criticism of President Obama is not based on who is "responsible" for the oil leaking. It is VALIDLY based on how long it took his Administration to RESPOND to the obvious and growing problems associated with the leak.

The OP is 99.95% bullshit. The remaining .05% is absurd. Nobody expects anything more from Bfgrn, though.

And then there is this:
Scientists Find That Tons Of Oil Seep Into The Gulf Of Mexico Each Year
Millions of gallons of oil seeps into the the gulf every year but it was not news? Everything has to be politicized it seems.

 

[GWV5903]

So I go to the site you show as "evidence" and the "article" you reference is a "speech". So I start looking over the site and here are the titles of some of the other articles:

Why Are Jews Liberals?

The Three R's in the Age of Obama: Rappin', Revolution and Radicalism (Politicized lessons supplant core academics.)

Obama’s Dangerous UN Agenda
(Obama insulted his own country, promoted environmentalism, embraced unilateral disarmament, and declared counterterrorism a “law enforcement” matter.
Conspiracy Czar)

Obama’s Human Rights Disaster

Islamist Groups Threaten Free Speech Ruling

********************

Obama's "dangerous"?

Obama's "disaster"?

Rappin'?

You might want to pick a more "credible" site. Though I don't know. White Wingers on this site have referred to "Forbes" "BusinessWeek" and the "New York Times" as "moonbat publications".

Do you really think Moore and Soros didn't own Haliburton?

When do you think the Congressional hearings will begin to investigate the corruption at the Minerals Management Service?

Do you really think Moore and Soros didn't own Haliburton?

2,000 shares is almost nothing.

I don't have any problem with anyone investing in the Stock Market. That is an American Pass-time. A good one as far as I'm concerned. If they have the money.

The problem is selling mortgages to people who can't afford them, selling them overseas as "securities", creating derivatives by insuring those securities and then making a fortune when those mortgages fail.

In the world of Republicans, everything is "either/or". It's probably the main reason they are so awful at governing. If you own stock you are "either" in someones pocket "or" you are a hypocrite because you criticize that company for making money in an unethical manner. And, because of "deregulation", what Wall Street did is NOT illegal. At least not now. But I bet it will be.

No the problem is our law makers, they knew dam good and well what they where doing in the mid '90s, did they do anything about it? Hell no, Franklin Raines made it very clear, these people deserve to own a home....

Watching Levin scold Goldman Sachs was comical, are you really that stupid? That was all theater for idiots like you, they knew all along, everyone knew it was bad, from the boardroom to the showroom....

They will do it again, the next time my kids will suffer the brunt of it, wake up, the US Government is the largest business in the world and they do not live by the same rules we have to....

 

[Tom Clancy]

Do you really think Moore and Soros didn't own Haliburton?

2,000 shares is almost nothing.

I don't have any problem with anyone investing in the Stock Market. That is an American Pass-time. A good one as far as I'm concerned. If they have the money.

The problem is selling mortgages to people who can't afford them, selling them overseas as "securities", creating derivatives by insuring those securities and then making a fortune when those mortgages fail.

In the world of Republicans, everything is "either/or". It's probably the main reason they are so awful at governing. If you own stock you are "either" in someones pocket "or" you are a hypocrite because you criticize that company for making money in an unethical manner. And, because of "deregulation", what Wall Street did is NOT illegal. At least not now. But I bet it will be.

What a hypocrite...

Shit, it's like if i become a Anti-Pot Activist and then go smoke a joint..

But of course, it's Moore and Soros, so another free pass for em eh?

 

[Old Rocks]

LOL. And all the finger pointing will not clean up one drop of the millions of tons of oil already in the Gulf.

We were assured that this kind of accident was simply impossible. We were assured that the oil companies had taken all neccessary precautions and had emergency equipment in place.

All completely fabrications.

 

[California Girl]

Yes and Obama was the largest single recipient of money from BP for the last 20 years.
All of these comments mean nothing and help no one. It is not the presidents fault when stuff like this happens. The pres is not God. How the Pres handles the situation after the fact is what matters and so far both administrations have been lacking.

Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's oversight agency, the Minerals Management Service, with a septic culture of corruption from which it has yet to recover. Oil patch alumnae in the White House encouraged agency personnel to engineer weakened safeguards that directly contributed to the gulf catastrophe.

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

Bending over for Big Oil became the ideological posture of the Bush White House...

Whole article...


"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Once again, you guys look like dumb asses. Obama only received 71,000 dollars AND, they were from the "employees" and NOT the company itself.

As Obama himself said "Since the gas lines of the ’70s, Democrats and Republicans have talked about energy independence, but nothing’s changed — except now Exxon’s making $40 billion a year, and we’re paying $3.50 for gas. I’m Barack Obama. I don’t take money from oil companies or Washington lobbyists, and I won’t let them block change anymore. They’ll pay a penalty on windfall profits. We’ll invest in alternative energy, create jobs and free ourselves from foreign oil. I approve this message because it’s time that Washington worked for you. Not them."

Of course, what he conveniently left out of his statement.... Corporations have been prohibited from contributing directly to federal candidates since the Tillman Act became law in 1907.

So it's not a 'lie' as such but it certainly makes it sound like he's the only candidate not taking funding from Oil Corps. That's 'honest dishonesty'.

 

[Harry Dresden]

Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's oversight agency, the Minerals Management Service, with a septic culture of corruption from which it has yet to recover. Oil patch alumnae in the White House encouraged agency personnel to engineer weakened safeguards that directly contributed to the gulf catastrophe.

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

Bending over for Big Oil became the ideological posture of the Bush White House...

Whole article...


"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

why dont you and Kennedy JR.go get a room...

 

[Eccgmike]

Wow!! George Bush doesn't want to land in New Orleans post Katrina for fear of diverting too many resource's to his arrival and he's an irresponsible idiot who doesn't care about black people. Barrack Obama doesn't want to land in New Orleans post BP oil rig explosion for fear of diverting resources, he's brilliant! Isn't the oil rig located 50 miles offshore from Venice LA???? Oh sorry,... Didn't mean to get distracted; George Bush runs up $500 billion deficit, un-American. Barrack Obama runs up 2 Trillion debt,..... He's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Unemployment hits 9.7 %, Bush's fault,........ Border not secure,......... Bush's fault,...... Neighbors dog shits on your lawn,........ Bush's fault, (I made that one up),........ is there no end to the blatant stupidity??......

 

[boedicca]

Obama is President.

It's time for him to Sack Up and accept responsibility, not that I have any hope that he will.

 

[gslack]

Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's oversight agency, the Minerals Management Service, with a septic culture of corruption from which it has yet to recover. Oil patch alumnae in the White House encouraged agency personnel to engineer weakened safeguards that directly contributed to the gulf catastrophe.

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

Bending over for Big Oil became the ideological posture of the Bush White House...

Whole article...


"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

And the meanderings of the SON of a far better man means what exactly?

Seriously what did you expect from a liberal poster boy? Its like getting advice on buying a used car from the cars seller....

Of course it bush's fault... Somehow it has to be, the Messiah couldn't possibly have made a mistake......

 

[Bfgrn]

Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's oversight agency, the Minerals Management Service, with a septic culture of corruption from which it has yet to recover. Oil patch alumnae in the White House encouraged agency personnel to engineer weakened safeguards that directly contributed to the gulf catastrophe.

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

Bending over for Big Oil became the ideological posture of the Bush White House...

Whole article...


"My hero is St. Francis of Assisi because he understood the connection between spirituality and the environment. He understood the way God communicates to us most forcefully is through the fish, the birds and the trees and that it is a sin to destroy those things."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

And the meanderings of the SON of a far better man means what exactly?

Seriously what did you expect from a liberal poster boy? Its like getting advice on buying a used car from the cars seller....

Of course it bush's fault... Somehow it has to be, the Messiah couldn't possibly have made a mistake......

So, the Minerals Management Service scandal never happened. And the proposal to mandate acoustical regulators on all gulf rigs was not circumvented by Cheney's re-staffing of the Minerals Management Service?

Sounds like the only 'meandering' is being done by you Bush apologists

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Is Robert Kennedy Jr any relation to Joe Kennedy who made a fortune short selling stock while Americans suffered and the other Kennedy brothers who wiretapped Martin Luther King?